Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Mass Media and the Rhetoric of Technological Progress

Not that long ago Bill Gates said that “the internet is
becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”Although the internet has significantly
impacted human communication, it is hardly the first form of mass media.More than 150 years earlier, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr. mimicked the tone of Gates’s remark when he called the stereograph
“the card of introduction to make all mankind acquaintances” (744).Working with the Raymond Holstein Stereograph
Collection at the Library Company this summer has made me think about the multiple
moments throughout modern history in which new technologies have made
communication more accessible to the general public.More significantly, this experience has made
me ask the question: what rhetorical strategies do societies use to emphasize
the beneficial aspects of media and technological revolutions?

Developed
by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838, the stereograph was the great-grandfather of
today’s 3D media.A stereograph card
contains two nearly identical photographs which produce the illusion of depth
when viewed through a stereoviewer.In
the subsequent decades, other inventors improved upon Wheatstone’s design
resulting in the commercialization of stereo photography.

A hand-held stereograph viewer, after the design
popularized by Oliver Wendell Holmes, with a stereograph inserted. Creator: Davepape, 2006. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holmes_stereoscope.jpg

Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, the
stereograph quickly became a form of easily accessible media in the United
States.While the daguerreotype, an
early one-of-a-kind photographic process, used expensive silver plates, many early
creators of stereograph views took advantage of paper processes like the albumen print, which allowed
for multiple copies of an image.As a
result, stereograph views had relatively low prices that increased both their
production quantity and the size of their audience. Additionally, the mass-produced
photographs facilitated a shift in subject matter.While many daguerreotypes were portraits of
the wealthy and their families, many stereo photographers captured the images
of landscapes and cityscapes to sell to the general public.The stereograph was one of the first
technologies that allowed Americans to affordably glimpse the world around them
from their home.

Although changes in
production helped the stereograph become a new mass media, it rested upon
journalists, writers, and intellectuals to make it a symbol of positive
societal advancement.As Edward W. Earle
argues, in 19th-century America the stereograph gained ideological prominence
through its association with the already celebrated ideal of mass
democracy.Earle writes that “anything
which allowed for the participation of more than one class came to be labeled
democratic…A realistic social ramification of democratic tendencies was greater
accessibility to information in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, and
pictures” (9).For writers like Holmes,
the varied views of stereographs offered a new and affordable form of visual
education.With stereographs, more
Americans could learn about the world through images and then make informed
decisions that contributed to running the republic.

A stereograph showing an affluent middle-class
woman using a stereograph viewer in her parlor.Title: “The Stereograph as an
Educator.” Creator: Underwood & Underwood, circa 1901.www.loc.gov/pictures/item/20026740577

In addition to signifying mass democracy, the stereograph also became a
symbol of America’s rising middle-class and consumer culture.In the mid to late 19th-century, increased
industrial output made the purchase of luxury items possible for those who were
not part of the wealthy elite. Americans associated the ability to purchase
consumer products with a new type of middle-class fashion and culture, or a “vernacular
gentry” (Bushman xiii).As Laura Schiavo
maintains in her examination of stereographs and American social history, “the
stereoscope belonged to an age in which the consumption of goods signified
one’s taste,” and “consuming culture was represented as the road to social
harmony” (235). Promoters of the stereograph portrayed the technology as a
benign result of industrialization and mass consumption; an affordable form of
cultural sophistication for many Americans.As more families purchased the new form of mass media, many believed
that their ability to do so signaled a higher standard of living for the
American middle class.

One of the many stereographs produced of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 showing the
grounds in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.Massive temporary buildings were constructed for the exhibition,
including the Main Exhibition Building, Machinery Hall, Horticultural Hall, and
the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot.The
exhibition celebrated ideals of democratic equality, consumer culture, and
technological progress. Title: Bird’s Eye
View of Grounds from Reservoir. Creator: Centennial Photographic Co., circa
1876.https://www.flickr.com/photos/library-company-of-philadelphia/19298070735/in/dateposted/

The Library Company’s Holstein Collection is filled
with stereographs from the Centennial
Exhibition of 1876.A 100th birthday
party for the United States, the exhibition served as both a celebration of
patriotism and showcase of new consumer products. Like the stereograph, the
Centennial Exhibition was portrayed by its chroniclers as a symbol of the
increased democratic equality and consumer power that came with technological
progress. Today, we should continue to recognize the ways in which we idealize
technological advancements and new forms of mass media.Technological development alone did not give
rise to the claim that the internet places us at the dawn of a global society
or that social media gives new power to public opinion.These claims reflect our crafting of the
story of technological development in terms of ideals we associate with benefit
and prosperity.

As my internship at the Library Company wraps up, I
would like to thank the staff of the Library for being friendly and welcoming,
especially those I worked closely with: Erika Piola, Sarah Weatherwax, and
Nicole Joniec in the Print Department and Connie King in the Reading Room.I would also like to thank the Haverford
College Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities for funding my internship
and its programs and administrative manager Emily Cronin for her support.

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The Library Company of Philadelphia

The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library specializing in American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Open to the public free of charge, the Library Company houses an extensive collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera, prints, photographs, and works of art. Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, the Library Company is America's oldest cultural institution and served as the Library of Congress from the Revolutionary War to 1800. The Library Company was the largest public library in America until the Civil War.

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